I read this article today [Edit i have re-linked, as they seem to have pulled the original article]. If you can't be bothered to read the article, it's basically about a local council having gotten fed up of complaints about grammar on their signs are now getting rid of all apostrophes from future city signs.
It is ridiculous for two reasons. Firstly, it is annoying that a council would give in like this to a little bit of moaning about grammar.
Secondly, one commentator said decision was "absolute defeatism" by the council. That said the commentator was John Richards; who is the proud founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society.
What?!!!
Hold on now, there are times when bad grammar does annoy me. But HE SET UP A WHAT???
An Apostrophe Protection Society! How much time does this ex-journalist John have? I did a little research and was horrified to find this...
Who spends their time (except me now) not just reviewing the punctuation of various ways of saying the same thing in such depth, but upholding the correct way of doing so. And a militant apostrophe protect... Bloody hell. I'm so shocked; I just can't quite get my head round it all.
At least if you’re going to get militant, get militant about something vaguely important, the World is full of good causes. (Although i can't picture them realistically chasing after Birmingham council with guns.)
This John Richards says, that this is teaching the young people in Birmingham the wrong things about punctuation. I think though, that young people may well start graffiti'ing [sic] the missing apostrophes back in.
I wonder whether the council will remove them again. Thankfully, (MAPS) are now seemingly defunct, which at least in my mind means they have found a better cause. Also with further research it seems that http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/ the old APS website is also now dead. Which may well mean I can lay my mind to rest about the troubling obsession about apostrophes.
For the record, the rules about apostrophes are;
Now all this has been written down I can stop my thoughts of having to throw things around the room angrily.
On a side note, I found out that John Richards is from Boston in Lincolnshire, which is the same little town as my housemate jack. I think they all might be a little weird from up there.
It is ridiculous for two reasons. Firstly, it is annoying that a council would give in like this to a little bit of moaning about grammar.
Secondly, one commentator said decision was "absolute defeatism" by the council. That said the commentator was John Richards; who is the proud founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society.
What?!!!
Hold on now, there are times when bad grammar does annoy me. But HE SET UP A WHAT???
An Apostrophe Protection Society! How much time does this ex-journalist John have? I did a little research and was horrified to find this...
Who spends their time (except me now) not just reviewing the punctuation of various ways of saying the same thing in such depth, but upholding the correct way of doing so. And a militant apostrophe protect... Bloody hell. I'm so shocked; I just can't quite get my head round it all.
At least if you’re going to get militant, get militant about something vaguely important, the World is full of good causes. (Although i can't picture them realistically chasing after Birmingham council with guns.)
This John Richards says, that this is teaching the young people in Birmingham the wrong things about punctuation. I think though, that young people may well start graffiti'ing [sic] the missing apostrophes back in.
I wonder whether the council will remove them again. Thankfully, (MAPS) are now seemingly defunct, which at least in my mind means they have found a better cause. Also with further research it seems that http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/ the old APS website is also now dead. Which may well mean I can lay my mind to rest about the troubling obsession about apostrophes.
For the record, the rules about apostrophes are;
- To indicate the possessive.
- To indicate missing letters.
Now all this has been written down I can stop my thoughts of having to throw things around the room angrily.
On a side note, I found out that John Richards is from Boston in Lincolnshire, which is the same little town as my housemate jack. I think they all might be a little weird from up there.
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